Opening Night - Review

Gielgud Theatre, London

****

Music, lyrics & orchestrations by Rufus Wainwright

Original film by John Cassavetes

Directed by & book written by Ivo Van Hove

Sheridan Smith

Every show has an opening night. In Mel Brooks’ musical The Producers he even included a song entitled Opening Night, so it was surely only a matter of time until a creative (step forward Ivo Van Hove) grabbed hold of John Cassavetes’ 1977 movie to fashion a two-act show around one of theatre’s most consistently nerve-wracking challenges.

In one of the boldest upendings of the genre, Van Hove’s multimedia, mind-meddling, meta-musical presents us with the decline of the fragile Myrtle (Sheridan Smith). A leading lady in The Second Woman, a Broadway play that’s four days from opening, Myrtle is already battling profound insecurities about her age and career. Early on in the narrative she witnesses the brutal death of Nancy, a fan killed in a road traffic accident immediately after having very nervously obtained the actress’s autograph. Following Nancy's death, the musical then tracks the ticking time-bomb of the impact of that trauma upon Myrtle’s mental well-being.

Smith is outstanding in a performance that mixes gravitas with fragility. The linchpin of both The Second Woman and Van Hove’s musical, it is her energy that drives the show. There are fine supporting performances too. Hadley Fraser is Manny, the demanding Broadway director who is all too happy to blur professional boundaries if it will reassure his leading lady. Nicola Hughes has the complex role of NY playwright Sarah, who is required to handle Myrtle’s mangling of her script as the actress’s mind unravels. The duet between Myrtle and Sarah, Makes One Wonder, is spine-tingling in its exploration of the pair’s respective vulnerabilities. Amy Lennox as Manny’s wife Dorothee has a modest but useful role in the narrative, providing a robust and challenging foil to her husband’s inappropriate conduct. 

The most impressive work amongst the supporting roles comes from West End debutante Shira Haas as Nancy. Haas takes this unfortunate young woman, transitioning her from a star-struck fan with issues to a ghost-like apparition that plagues Myrtle’s troubled mind. This is a bold conceit addressed brilliantly by Van Hove and lending an almost horrific edge to the second act. 

The use of video and live-action multi-camera projections (designed by Jan Versweyveld) deploys a massive upstage screen that not only plays around with cleverly storyboarded close-ups, but goes further with the merging of camera shots. In a remarkable coup-de-theatre, as Myrtle reaches her mental nadir, Versweyveld and Van Hove use time-lapse to add another visible dimension to the actress’s distress.

Rufus Wainwright’s music is, for the most part, a joy to experience taking in a range of American styles. Nigel Lilley’s 9-piece onstage band are terrific with standout work from Huw Davies on guitar. Wainwright’s lyrics occasionally drift into repetitive triteness, a feature perhaps of his rock and pop background rather than the more rigid disciplines of musical theatre.

Opening Night makes for a challenging night of unconventional theatre that is at times deeply upsetting. Sheridan Smith’s performance is one of the finest to be found on a London stage.

Booking until 27th July

Photo credit: Jan Versweyveld

Eugenius! - Review

London Palladium, London

Music, book and lyrics by Ben Adams and Chris Wilkins

Directed by Ian Talbot and Michael Jibson

For one night only Eugenius! played at the London Palladium in a concert premiere production of this new musical. As the (lavishly workshopped) show is now entering its final phase of development there is no star rating here, rather an assessment of the performance.

Eugenius! makes for a curious tale. Tracking an implausible yarn of two brothers separated at birth, this ain't no Blood Brothers, nor, with its focus upon geeky adolescents is it much of a Loserville either. Dipping in and out of a fictional world dreamed up by Eugene, there's a bizarre science fiction twist that sees (co-producer) Warwick Davis also play the Evil Lord Hector, who has now evolved into an extra-terrestrial bad guy out to wreak revenge on his earthling brother.

There's a love interest too, but overall, much like Lord Hector's return from across the galaxies, it's all a bit far-fetched, with the show lacking the ribald pantomime humour of I Can’t Sing!, (another show endowed with an exclamation mark in the title...) the last new British musical to play the Palladium. Is Eugenius! aiming at the 30/40-something audience for whom the 80s references maybe spot-on but who might expect much more meat in the narrative? Or is it aiming at a much younger audience, in which case some of the adult nuance is at best inappropriate, and at times mildly offensive? Either way, Eugenius! is a very lightweight offering with a story that needs some serious treatment and a running time crying out to be trimmed by at least 30 minutes.

Aside from a ghastly ticketing glitch that led to a 30 minute delay, the production values on the night were impressive. A stellar cast led well drilled ensembles from Laine Theatre Arts and Arts Ed, with Aaron Renfree choreographing some slick routines.

David Bedella as a cynical TV producer was his usual infernally wonderful self, with Amy Lennox and Summer Strallen sharing the honours as leading ladies in the show's real and fictional worlds. Fine work too from Norman Bowman, Daniel Buckley and Samuel Holmes in support, with Louis Maskell (in strong voice) leading as the eponymous Eugene.

Ian Talbot and Mike Jibson directing made decent use of the modest staging constraints imposed upon the production and credit to Andrew Ellis whose lightning designs throughout were consistently stunning.

Last night Eugenius! was well endowed with one of the finest companies in town, both acting and creative, but as it stands it has simply been rolled in glitter. This is a show that needs careful polishing.

Kinky Boots - Review

Adelphi Theatre, London


****


Book by Harvey Fierstein
Music and lyrics by Cyndi Lauper
Directed and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell

The Company

Two years after its Broadway debut, Kinky Boots strides into London’s Adelphi Theatre, helmed again by Jerry Mitchell who is evidently looking to repeat the show’s award-winning success over here.

Based on the BBC film of a decade ago – in turn inspired by true events - Kinky Boots tells of a Northampton based shoe factory facing closure, that stumbles across the idea of making women’s fashion thigh-length boots but built for a man’s body. As their kinky boots go down a storm amongst the transvestite and drag community, the company is saved.

It’s a neat conceit and the story hinges around two men. Lola - really Simon from Clacton – an acclaimed drag act, who underneath the costumed façade is desperate to be accepted by the world around him, particularly his ageing father. Charlie is a straight guy who has inherited the shoe factory and who comes to learn to love and respect Lola (who has provided the inspiration along with the creative input and design for the factory’s kinky boots), for who he is.

But whilst there’s a decent integrity to the show’s pulse of self belief and determination, Fierstein’s book is too predictable. If Matt Henry’s Lola, in all his splendour, had burst into singing I Am What I Am from La Cage Aux Folles when he visits the Clacton old folk’s home, in place of the maudlin Hold Me In Your Heart it would not have been out of place. That being said, Henry is a stunning turn and his duet with Killian Donnelly’s equally impressive Charlie in Not My Father’s Son, makes for spine tingling musical theatre. 

In amongst all the fabulously choreographed dick-heavy chicks there’s a straight love story too. Amy Lennox’s Lauren offers way too much talent to a role that’s often not much more than cliché, rivalling Amy Ross’ deliciously cynical Nicola, Charlie’s frustrated fiancee who’s harshly not even offered one song credit. The view of a gritty Northampton through Fierstein and Lauper’s glitzy Broadway prism doesn’t quite convince and if only there was as much meat in the show’s story as there is in its well packed dancers' lunchboxes, then this could have been quite the perfect musical.

But no matter, because for the whooping girlies and twirlies in the audience, Kinky Boots undoubtedly hits the spot. Mitchell also choreographs and his vision creates some sensational routines. With numbers staged on fashion-show runways, workshop staircases and ridiculously (but with jaw-dropping brilliance) even on a moving factory conveyor belt, the song and dance of Kinky Boots bear the hallmarks of cutting edge West End originality.

Booking until 6th February